The bullet was rolled with the point inward towards the powder charge. The Confederates made bullets to the same pattern but, sans the wooden plug. It typically had a wooden plug to expand the hollow base. The English cartridge used a bullet, commonly called a 'Pritchett' which was smooth sided and about. One of every cartridges was of a special cleaning round having a compressible washer to scrape the bore.īut, the English system was largely used by the Confederacy and increasingly so until by 1864 it was made official. The grease on the bullet was supposed to ease loading and fouling. Then the ball is inserted and rammed home. To load, the cartridge is bitten open, powder poured down the barrel and then the bullet is peeled from it's wrapper which is then discarded. The typical Minie' bullet has three rings packed with grease, rolled into it's cartridge paper point out. Most here are likely familiar with the Yankee version of cartridges if at all. Some back ground may help clarify my question for those not generally familiar with mid 1800 cartridges. Secondly, would that leave my side walls too thin?! It's a loss of about. (Besides whittling it down with a pocket knife? )

What I am wondering is Ĭan anybody suggest or conceive of a way to shave a.

I really don't have time to cast my own and it would be tough finding a mold. The could and did involve up to 3 different pieces of different thicknesses including one near the consistency of paste board.įor those interested in more detail, try these two pages: For a quick review- īack to my subject. For those who may not know, those were not simple paper tubes with powder and ball dumped in. I prefer to load and shoot from paper cartridges. I have a repro P1853 Enfield in the form of a 1st gen Parker-Hale.

Pritchett bullet mold